Keith is the acting Commissioner and Administrator, and due to having all of the responsibility and work (both in-season and off-season), he is also the holder of benevolent power. All rules are laid forth on paper by the end of June, and any issues that may arise during the season will be resolved by the Competition and Trade Committee, composed of Keith, Will, Billy, Erik, and Jeremy.

Each team is composed of 20 total players. Each team can keep one player from their last year's roster as their Franchise Player (they designate this no later than July 31). All other players are put back into the pool, and we have a Draft Day the day before the regular season begins.

The roster parameters are set ahead of time (see below), and everyone takes turns picking players. At the end of the draft, each team's rosters must conform to the guidelines set forth. After the draft is completed, each owner may change the construction of their team as they see fit (dropping a QB, adding a WR, etc.), as long as they don't have more than 20 active players at kickoff time of that week's games.

The positional ratios defined on Draft Day are only applicable for the original configuration. After the Draft and throughout the entire season owners can have 15 QB's and 5 TE's if they want to! Of course, they still can only start 1 QB, 2 RB's, 3 WR's, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DF/ST, and 1 Coach...

The current Ragnarok Champion is awarded with the first overall pick in the following year's draft. At first, this may seem counter-intuitive, but consider that only 1 player is kept from year to year. Therefore, teams do not have a nucleus of players to build from each year, and the Champion should have some reward going into the next season.

Each round, the order of the draft reverses in serpentine fashion.

Teams are allowed and encouraged to wheel-n-deal with their draft picks on or before draft day, i.e. trading a 2nd round pick for both a 4th and 5th round pick from another team, etc. If a team does trade more picks than it receives, it can fill out the remaining roster spots after the draft is completed.

Each week, your team faces one other team (determined by the season schedule posted before the season starts), and every owner submits their starting rosters (the positions defined below) prior to kickoff in that week's first game (usually Sundays, but sometimes Thursdays or Saturdays). The 9 starters each week are always in the same positional ratio: 1 QB, 2 RB's, 1 TE, 3 WR's, 1 K, 1 DF/ST, 1 Coach.

These players earn points for their fantasy team through actual real-life scoring and yardage bonuses. The total points earned by those players is that fantasy team's final score, and the winning team is determined by highest score between the two teams which faced each other.

Teams accrue win-loss records through the first 13 weeks of the regular season, and the top 6 teams face each other in the playoffs, which take place in weeks 14-16 of the NFL regular season.

The first level of tie-breaker will be Coach, and there are no other tie-breakers.

During the regular season (covering the first 14 weeks of the NFL's 17 weeks), each team faces each divisional opponent twice, and every other team in the league once.

One rule shall rule them all: stats.

All fantasy results are subject to audit and correction up until kickoff of the final week of the regular season. It is essential to defer to the official statistics, even if the NFL changes their official stats at a later time.

Once the final regular season game kicks off, all previous games in the regular season are considered locked and cannot be audited. That way, every team knows *exactly* where they are going into the playoff hunt at the last week of the regular season.

The final game of the regular season can be audited and corrected up until midnight of Wednesday of that week.

The winners of each division, determined by the overall records within the division (and not merely the division record), get the first 4 seeds in the Ragnarok playoffs, which take place in weeks 14-16 of the NFL's regular season. This means that Team A with a 5-1 divisional record, 7-7 overall, would not beat Team B that had a 10-4 record but who's divisional record was 4-2 (the way it was prior to 2000). Team B would be the divisional champion.

Of the 8 teams remaining, the teams with the best 2 overall records reach the playoffs. The worst 6 teams in the league do not play in the official playoffs (though see the next paragraph). In case of a tie in determining what teams will make the playoffs, the total points scored throughout the season will be used as the first tiebreaker (starters' points for each week, totaled). The second tie-breaker for this situation will be divisional record. The third tie-breaker will be the teams' head-to-head record. The fourth tie-breaker will be a vicious game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, 3 out of 5.

As in the NFL, every team enters the playoffs with a clean slate. In case of a tie in the playoffs, the tiebreaker order is: 1) Coach, 2) DF, 3) bench points. After that, it goes to home team.

The six teams that missed the playoffs will face each other in the Loser Playoffs, which will determine their draft position for the following season. Just as the top 6 teams in the league are playing for their draft position, so shall the losers. This will take place over Weeks 15 and 16. Teams will be seeded according to their overall records, with the best team facing the worst in the first round.

Each team has the option of declaring a hometown. While in the past there has been a home-and-away regular season schedule, with the move to a 13 week regular season schedule this is not longer symmetrical and therefore homefield advantage will not exist in the regular season.

For the playoffs, the home team gets 2 bonus points to start the game with, reflecting their home-field advantage.

In order to mix in an additional small element of a "Keeper League" and reward an owner's speculation for drafting a rookie, a new rule was instituted for the 1999 Draft. If a rookie was drafted in the previous year's draft, in the current year that owner may keep both their regular Franchise Player and that one rookie, IF that rookie was drafted and had never entered the free agent pool.

This same idea can be extended through that player's third season, as well, where the team owner can give up a first round pick in order to keep the same drafted rookie player for the upcoming third year in a row, if that player has never left their roster after their acquisition in their rookie season.

When a player is kept using this rule, that team's respective draft position/pick cannot be traded. In other words, if a team keeps a rookie and gives up their early 2nd round pick, they cannot "trade down" to a later 2nd round pick and get compensation for it. They are locked into that position, as to do otherwise will encourage bad trades as the team trading down has an incentive to do so for as little as 1 Megabuck.

Again, the restrictions on the Rookie Rule are as follows:

* The player must be drafted and can never enter the free agent pool.

* The player must be a true rookie in the NFL when drafted by a Ragnarok team.

* Draft spots reserved for kept rookies cannot be traded.

Ragnarok allows for each team to designate one starting Running Back on their roster as their Mixed-Yardage Specialist).

A Mixed Yardage specialist totals their rushing and receiving yardage, and compares it to the Mixed Yardage Chart. This chart is balanced and weighted so as to penalize owners from just designating any running back as the Specialist. For example, if Marshall Faulk is declared as a Specialist, he would not earn as many points as if he was just a basic Running Back. In other words, it shouldn't be just a second-hand thought and an extra ability for some player to have. It is only be practical to designate a player who really does rely on a mix of running and receiving. There are a number of running backs in the league who have good receiving abilities which are utilized by their teams, and this would be one way to recognize those players.

Once the season begins, one extra slot becomes available for each team: Injured Reserve.

There are no longer any legal definitions for qualifying a player for IR, but it is now a one-way street, where any player placed on IR cannot be reactivated without cutting them first and trying to reacquire them through Free Agency.

This results in owners having to carefully consider placing a player on IR. If one player is on IR, and another player becomes injured and the owner would prefer to keep him instead, then the second player can take the place of the first, and the first IR player would be a Free Agent.

IR players can also be arbitrarily cut, and placed into Free Agency.

After the first game of the regular season, there will be a free agent list posted every week and all owners can look it over and bid on any player on the list, keeping in mind that the roster size is limited to 20 players and one IR spot.

All bids have to be submitted on the website by 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, and all bids are resolved simultaneously.

On other important rule to stress is that all team rosters will be locked down one hour before the free agency processing. At 7 p.m. every Wednesday, trading will be prohibited until the 8 p.m. free agency is resolved.

Each week, teams will receive 10 Megabucks for each defeat suffered by their team, or 5 Megabucks for a tie. This allow weaker teams to have a slight advantage in order to be competitive in Free Agency bids, where with good general manager skills they can convert that into competitiveness on the field.

At the beginning of the season, each owner will have 100 Megabucks. When an owner sees a free agent which they wish to acquire, they will submit a secret bid for that player, complete with how many Megabucks they are willing to spend in order to get that player. The highest bidder gets the player; in case of a tie, the team that submitted their bid first will get the player.

Megabucks can be traded amongst teams.

Owners can bid on as many players as they would like, but keep in mind the following important considerations:

The total number of Megabucks that can be bid cannot exceed the total amount of Megabucks held. One cannot bid "20 Megabucks on Alfred Pupunu, only if my $40M on Mathew Hatchette is unsuccessful."
For every player that is bid upon, a player has to be designated as being the one that is being cut (this can be done either a 1-to-1 correspondence, or by using an ordered cut list).

All trades are pretty much legal but are subject to a Fairness Committee vote if one is called for. Teams are not allowed to "loan" or "trade for a day" players to other teams. Trading can begin August 1 (even though at that time teams only have 1 player, their Franchise Player.

Teams are also be able to include Megabucks as part of a trade.

No future season's draft picks can be traded.

With a tip of the hat to Bill Simmons

The duties of an owner are simple: Don't bring your girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/husband to the draft; don't draft someone that was already drafted; don't draft an injured guy (leading your buddies to be thrust into an awkward position of either screwing you or giving you a do-over); try to field a competitive team; create an offensive team name; start a lineup of healthy players every week; return e-mails or phone calls within 24 hours unless you're trapped under something; and, when all else fails, at least come up with an occasional funny e-mail or message-board post.

But what about owners who bring nothing to the table and do a terrible job with their team? For whatever reason, it's less awkward for guys to dump a girlfriend than to discard a deadbeat fantasy owner. There's always some crazy reason to keep him around, like "It would be awkward for the commissioner to run into him at work" or "Let's cut him some slack, he's going through a divorce." Ridiculous. We already have to deal with too much dead weight in real life, we don't need it in our fantasy lives.

SOLUTION: The "three strikes and you're out" rule.

Here's how it works: During the draft, if you don't make any jokes and sit there looking like Mike Holmgren watching the Super Bowl XL video, that's a strike. If you repeatedly take too long to make picks, to the point that everyone is screaming 12-letter expletives every time you're on the clock, that's a strike. If more than twice you draft someone who was already drafted, because you aren't paying attention, that's a strike. If you draft an injured guy (leading to the aforementioned "should we or shouldn't we give him a do-over" intervention), that's a strike. If you spend the entire draft whispering on your cell phone to some unseen partner and ignoring everyone in the room, that's a strike. If you're too cheap to buy your own magazines and ask to borrow someone else's, that's a strike. If you forgot to bring money to the draft, that's a strike.

But wait, there's more. After the draft, if you don't return an e-mail or a phone call within 72 hours and can't come up with a valid excuse, that's a strike. If you go more than a month without sending a group e-mail or making a message-board post that belittles the credentials of someone else in the league, that's a strike. If you belatedly respond to someone's e-mail or phone call with a snarky comment like "Sorry I took so long to respond -- some of us actually have jobs" or "Just in case you forgot, there are more important things in life than fantasy football," that's a strike. If you started someone who's out for the season, or if you didn't use the waiver wire to try to replace that person, that's a strike. If you make a horrendously shady trade, even, if it gets overturned, that's still a strike. Three strikes and you're out. Simple as that.

(One other note: If you don't show up for the draft, can't do it by phone and have the gall to send a lackey with some half-assed list you make to pick your team, that's three strikes. Go away.)

$75 Entry Fee, plus $5 for the website, are due on July 1st of each year. Please mail this amount to the commissioner by that date. Prizes will be immediately paid based on the following final results:

1st place: $325
2nd place: $175
3rd place: $125
4th place: $125
5th place: $75
6th place: $75